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JRKlein
2010-10-24, 01:34 PM
What's the point of the Goblin language? Personally, I like to envision it as the language of the criminal underworld, but I don't know what the official fluff says.

Urpriest
2010-10-24, 01:39 PM
What's the point of the Goblin language? Personally, I like to envision it as the language of the criminal underworld, but I don't know what the official fluff says.

It's the language Goblins speak...

Gralamin
2010-10-24, 01:42 PM
It's just an example of Tradition. The Goblins have always spoken a different language, and so 4e goblins speak a different language.

PacifistOgre
2010-10-24, 01:59 PM
What's the point of the Elven language? What's the point of the Giant language? Supernal? Deep Speech?

Everyone should just speak American! :smalltongue:

JRKlein
2010-10-24, 02:12 PM
No need to be snarky.

OK, it's the language goblins speak. Message received. I just wondered if there was something more to it.

Personally, I still like the idea that it's the unofficial language of scum and villainy.

tcrudisi
2010-10-24, 02:20 PM
It's the language that Goblins speak. :smalltongue:


No need to be snarky.

OK, it's the language goblins speak. Message received. I just wondered if there was something more to it.

Personally, I still like the idea that it's the unofficial language of scum and villainy.

It's also the language of hobgoblins and bugbears.

I don't think it's a bad idea for a house-rule to have it be the language of scum and villainy. It certainly makes it more important at the higher levels when it loses a lot of its luster. It's a neat idea, but it has no base in canon 4e. Still - if I showed up to a game and the DM said, "Goblin is the unofficial language of scum and villainy," I would support that.

PacifistOgre
2010-10-24, 02:24 PM
Personally, I still like the idea that it's the unofficial language of scum and villainy.

That's racist. :P More to the point, why would non-Goblins care? I don't see dwarven/elven/dragonborn/etc criminals adopting the language of some random other humanoid culture just for kicks. If they need a convenient code language I guess they might have a use for it, but it would in no way be special or less comprehensible than any other language they might pick (like their own, in a human city).

Personally I'd use Giant if I had to, it probably sounds more intimidating to people trying to eavesdrop. And as an added bonus, unless you live in an area with an ogre problem, you're less likely to find anyone that bothered to learn Giant to begin with. Goblins are low-level enough and widespread enough that anyone with a spare language to learn might conceivably get some use out of it without having to adventure--the kind of usefulness that law enforcement or the city guard might appreciate, for instance. So in that sense Goblin is probably not a very good secret code at all.

Marnath
2010-10-24, 02:29 PM
That's racist. :P More to the point, why would non-Goblins care? I don't see dwarven/elven/dragonborn/etc criminals adopting the language of some random other humanoid culture just for kicks. If they need a convenient code language I guess they might have a use for it, but it would in no way be special or less comprehensible than any other language they might pick (like their own, in a human city).

Personally I'd use Giant if I had to, it probably sounds more intimidating to people trying to eavesdrop.

Giant is probably much too barbaric to contain the words organized crime needs. I can easily see goblin being universal criminal speech, all it takes is for them(goblinoids) to become pervasive at all levels of influence, from expendable lackey to bandit kings. Like in DDO, where you help a merchant fight his rival, a bugbear smuggler lord.

Urpriest
2010-10-24, 02:32 PM
In Eberron, Goblin is a pretty good language for Scum and Villainy, since there's a big goblinoid underclass in Sharn. Similarly, in my Aegypt world Giant is the language of scum and villainy because of the Ogre Mafia. If you want a given language to be the standard language of scum and villainy, just make a sufficient percentage of your scum and villains of the appropriate race.

PacifistOgre
2010-10-24, 02:33 PM
Giant is probably much too barbaric to contain the words organized crime needs.

If you're using ogre slang, maybe. But there are plenty of giants who default to above-average intelligence.

Although that may have been tweaked in 4e, I distinctly recall some 3e giants who seemed to have a civilization going and had fairly high intelligence...really, made *elves* look like the barbarians.

tcrudisi
2010-10-24, 02:50 PM
If you're using ogre slang, maybe. But there are plenty of giants who default to above-average intelligence.

True, but the origins of Giant are thus: "The titans and giants adopted a debased version of Primordial (language of effreets, archons and elementals) for their own tongue."

That sounds like a fairly harsh and intimidating language to me.

PacifistOgre
2010-10-24, 03:03 PM
True, but the origins of Giant are thus: "The titans and giants adopted a debased version of Primordial (language of effreets, archons and elementals) for their own tongue."

That sounds like a fairly harsh and intimidating language to me.

"Harsh and intimidating" does not = "barbaric and crude, with a limited vocabulary unfit for intelligent communication" though. Harsh and intimidating sound is in fact a bonus, if you're trying to do shady things and look like even more of a tough guy to the people that can't understand you.

Besides, the character builder says that "debased version of (Primordial/Supernal)" thing for EVERY language, including Elven and Draconic. All it means is that the mortals are playing at something the oldest life forms perfected first, and in comparison they aren't very good at it.

Xuc Xac
2010-10-25, 03:16 AM
True, but the origins of Giant are thus: "The titans and giants adopted a debased version of Primordial (language of effreets, archons and elementals) for their own tongue."

That sounds like a fairly harsh and intimidating language to me.

French is a debased form of Latin. Is that a harsh sounding language?

German sounds harsh and intimidating, but it's also full of highly technical vocabulary. It's actually the most important language to know if you want to study organic chemistry because most of the scientific literature for that field is written in German.

I think Goblin would be interesting as a language of scum and villainy, but unless the goblins in your world have a developed civilization, they probably won't have words for white collar crimes like "embezzlement" or "insurance fraud". No real language would make a good code to prevent law enforcement from catching on to them. Unless you use some strange language restrictions like 1ed's alignment tongues, then there's no reason the good guys couldn't learn it too.

Morph Bark
2010-10-25, 06:07 AM
In my last campaign setting, Goblin was often spoken by pirates and marines, as one hobgoblin nation had a pretty strong marine and several certified buccaneer crews.

In the same vein, Gnomish was used as the language of science!, even though Gnomes are virtually extinct, but some Elven noble houses had Gnomish blood and practiced science! fervently - in fact some Elves no longer spoke Elvish due to being too involved with the ancient Gnomish practices of science!. Orcish was used as a religious language used as a common tongue between tribal cultures in deserts, jungles and artic areas, replacing Common in those parts.



French is a debased form of Latin. Is that a harsh sounding language?

Yes. Enter France and you will never feel the same about people speaking vile tongues that would shy Elder Gods away if they were not Elder Gods. To top it off, it's their only manner of communication! How crazy is the concept of mono-lingualism?

http://rlv.zcache.com/too_crazy_to_fix_button-p145439746291255367t5qx_210.jpg DUN DUN DUNNN!!

Yuki Akuma
2010-10-25, 06:16 AM
French is a debased form of Latin. Is that a harsh sounding language?

English is a debased form of Old English (and French, and German, and God-only-knows what else).

It also has the largest vocabulary of any language in the world.

Attilargh
2010-10-25, 06:25 AM
It also has the largest vocabulary of any language in the world.
That's debatable (http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/lang/vocab.html).

Yuki Akuma
2010-10-25, 06:27 AM
That's debatable (http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/lang/vocab.html).

Fine, "one of".

It contains a lot of synonyms and technical terms. It's still a debased form of Old English (and sundry).

Dr. Qwerk
2010-10-25, 07:04 AM
Well, any language can develop or borrow new words for any concept it requires to express.

So, even if a language like giant had quite a narrow vocabulary, it would still be possible to use it in any context by using words from other languages.

Moreover, words used for technical terms in any field, and we can include thievery and crime here as well, usually propagate in a smaller number of languages which are spoken there where that field is most advanced.

So, if any foreign language would be used in a fantasy setting to act as a specialized language of the underworld, it would be the one of the race most involved in it. If goblins are the crimebosses, it's Goblin. If giants rule the underworld, even if it's only ogres and trolls, it would still be Giant, because it would invent and borrow words.

As for the question of the largest vocabulary, it is meaningless. About half of the vocabulary of English comes from other languages, such as Latin, old French, old Norse, Celtic languages, etc etc etc. And whenever a new concept is created, the word for that concept is snatched from the language where it was created, which is especially easy now when the whole world is interconnected.

Morph Bark
2010-10-25, 07:08 AM
Fine, "one of".

It contains a lot of synonyms and technical terms. It's still a debased form of Old English (and sundry).

It certainly does. I can't think of another West-European language that has more synonyms than English - plus in other languages a word often can mean more than one thing, whereas in English that word would be split up into several differently-meaning words. Furthermore, most recently-invented words in English have been adopted by other languages, rather than them inventing new words for it. The only exception I can think of is the French word for "computer".

Dr. Qwerk
2010-10-25, 07:14 AM
It certainly does. I can't think of another West-European language that has more synonyms than English - plus in other languages a word often can mean more than one thing, whereas in English that word would be split up into several differently-meaning words. Furthermore, most recently-invented words in English have been adopted by other languages, rather than them inventing new words for it. The only exception I can think of is the French word for "computer".

Synonyms are merely temporary, as they oppose the basic feature of a language - language economy. Synonyms will eventually become obsolete and will stop being used, because there's no need for more than one word for any one term if the differences in meaning are minimal.

English has an enormous vocabulary because it is currently one of the most spoken languages in the world, is in contact with a large number of other languages, and it is currently the language of mutual understanding between people who speak different languages. All of these things can and probably will change with time.

dsmiles
2010-10-25, 07:20 AM
Personally, I still use Thieves' Cant as the language of the underworld and other, less organized criminals. Rogues get it as a free bonus language at level 1. (Also, I still use Druidic for the druids.)

and it is currently the language of mutual understanding between people who speak different languages.
And here I thought that math was the universal language...

RebelRogue
2010-10-25, 07:31 AM
Synonyms are merely temporary, as they oppose the basic feature of a language - language economy. Synonyms will eventually become obsolete and will stop being used, because there's no need for more than one word for any one term if the differences in meaning are minimal.
The evolution of languages does not work that logically (thankfully). Also, eliminating words for eficiency sounds very Newspeaky to me.

Dr. Qwerk
2010-10-25, 07:37 AM
The evolution of languages does not work that logically (thankfully). Also, eliminating words for eficiency sounds very Newspeaky to me.

It is not that logical to the extreme, but it is one of the mechanisms of language, and it does work.

Xuc Xac
2010-10-25, 10:26 AM
Synonyms are merely temporary, as they oppose the basic feature of a language - language economy. Synonyms will eventually become obsolete and will stop being used, because there's no need for more than one word for any one term if the differences in meaning are minimal.

This completely ignores the primary purpose of language: wooing women with poetry. You need more than one word with the same meaning so you can make different rhymes.

Also, more seriously, synonyms continue to be used because they have the same meanings but in different registers such as when one synonym sounds more serious or formal than the other. For example, in English, words with an Anglo-Saxon origin like "cattle" or "redden" or "pretty" sound plain but words with a Romantic origin like "bovine" or "incarnadine" or "beautiful" sound fancier even though the lexical values are the same.

Yuki Akuma
2010-10-25, 10:39 AM
"Romanic" - of Romans. Not "Romantic".

Xuc Xac
2010-10-25, 10:56 AM
I meant to say "Romance".

Yuki Akuma
2010-10-25, 11:03 AM
I meant to say "Romance".

In that context, "Romanic" was the right word choice. :smallwink:

Xuc Xac
2010-10-25, 11:11 AM
Romance and Romanic are the same thing.

Achernar
2010-10-25, 11:42 AM
It's so you, the DM, can translate goblin into english for your player's amusement:

"Please do not open this door." ==> "Hey, dirthead! No open!"
"You are a druid?" ==> "So, you're one of those tree[goblinsaren'tnice]s, aren't you?!"

The list goes on ad infinitem, and thus Goblin is a great language for picking up girls, hailing taxis and conducting job interviews. :smallamused:

Yuki Akuma
2010-10-25, 12:12 PM
Romance and Romanic are the same thing.

One is a noun, the other is an adjective.

Mewtarthio
2010-10-25, 12:39 PM
One is a noun, the other is an adjective.

Wikipedia'd! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages)

Yuki Akuma
2010-10-25, 12:41 PM
:smallsigh:

Forget I said anything. Sheesh.

dsmiles
2010-10-25, 12:52 PM
Wikipedia'd! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages)

Yes, and we all know that only people who are absolutely correct in everything they write can edit wikipedia. :smalltongue:

Randel
2010-10-25, 01:10 PM
I always tend to make low level characters who know goblin. That way they can talk to the monsters they are likely to fight. I've always kind of seen goblins as a disenfranchised group of which a fair percentage just want to live comfortably but are shunned by everyone else, and another bunch hate the gut of humans and elves and such.


Being able to talk to them (and either offer bribes or threaten them with torture) works out because at least that way you can learn about what the tribe is doing and who they are working for. I suspect draconic is good for kobolds.

Come to think of it, goblins and other monstrous races probably see a different side of the world then the humanoid races. Being able to talk with them could at least give you a decent idea of all the wars and history of the setting... at least they might remember plenty of wars or battles they lost and who the current Dark Lord is.

WitchSlayer
2010-10-25, 04:57 PM
If I were to make a language in scum and villainy in my setting, I'd probably combine Goblin, a few other monster languages, the structure of Common and a bit of Abyssal just for fun.